Pitching Masterpiece

Well, how unfortunate? Johan Santana comes out and pitches a wonderful game and Joe Nathan saves it in a dominating way and its not on TV. FSN have got major problems, as they have not shown several Santana gems this year. What did you miss by this major mistake? Eight masterful innings, with 13 Ks, no runs, four hits and two walks. Santana was as dominating as he has been this year and it was once again against the division rival Chicago White Sox. And Joe Nathan came to grab his 38th save, striking out the side. If that doesn't present our great pitching, I don't know what else does. And if it doesn't help show exactly why Johan Santana deserves a second Cy Young, we have bigger issues. (Colon was torn apart last start, as was Buerhle. Neither is dominating the way Santana is. If you want talk about the BEST pitcher in the AL, there is no doubt in any smart baseball mind that the answer is Johan. Wins be damned. Santana is the Cy Young)

Besides the outstanding pitching, the Twins did manage a nice five runs off of Orlando Hernandez and the White Sox staff. Justin Morneau passed his home run total of last year (in 438 at bats versus the impressive 280 at bats of last year) with his 20th homer of the year, a two-run shot off of Hernandez. Michael Cuddyer provided the other power, hitting his 10th homer off of White Sox rookie phenom Brandon McCarthy in the seventh. The other offense came with Jason Tyner, who went 3 for 5 with two RBIs in the leadoff spot, and Lew Ford and Terry Tiffee, who had two hits each.

Of course, the game doesn't mean much other than being a spoiler game as the White Sox have been atrocious as of late. With an unfortunate loss after a great start by Scott Baker last night, Kyle Lohse (who has the 6th worse run support in the AL at 3.83) starts after showing much better stuf his last game out. Hopefully the Twins take two out of three to at least keep their spoiler role at maximum level.